Memoir of an iconic female aviator
JOHNSON, Amy. Sky Roads of the World. London: W & R Chambers. 1939.
8vo. Original blue cloth, dust jacket with mounted illustration of a biplane; pp. [7], 314; wrappers frayed, fore-edge spotted; rear hinge re-inforced; loss of spine on dust jacket; otherwise a good copy.
First edition, signed. The celebrity pilot Amy Johnson was the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia and, as she emphasizes in the pages of this memoir, wrote a book intended to be "a romantic story of the world's great sky routes, as seen by a pilot who has flown over most of them". Released two years prior to her mysterious death in 1941, this astonishing memoir of an iconic female aviator, who boldly subverted gender barriers in a risk driven field, is dedicated "to all those who fell by the airwayside, for nothing is wasted, and every apparent fail is but a challenge to others" and composed with a pioneering wish to "recreate a magic of the air which, alas! We so often forget to notice in this hard, commercial age".
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